She counted slowly.
"Two hundred and fifty men, National Guards and soldiers. They cross the fosse; they mount behind the demi-lune. Gaspard is talking to Marc. What is he saying?"
She seemed to listen.
"'Hasten! Ay, hasten; never was more need of speed! They are on the glacis!"
There was a long silence; then the old woman, suddenly springing to her feet, rose to her full height, and with arms outstretched, and hair flying wildly about her head, shouted:
"Courage! Strike! kill! kill! kill!"
She fell heavily to the earth.
Her terrible cry had awakened all; it might have awakened the dead. New life seemed breathed into the besieged. Something strange and unearthly seemed to fill the air. Was it hope? life? I know not; but the entire party came crawling up on all fours, like wild beasts, holding their breath that they might listen. Even Louise moved slightly, and raised her head. Frantz and Kasper dragged themselves on their knees, and strange to say, Hullin, casting his eyes toward Phalsbourg, thought he saw the flashes of musketry, as if a sortie were being made.
Catherine resumed her first attitude; but her cheeks, lately rigid as a marble mask, now quivered, and her eye again grew dreamy. The others listened; their lives seemed hanging on her lips. Thus a quarter of an hour passed, when she again spoke slowly: